“And a wonderful afternoon to you, too. Tell your banks and mistresses I send my love,” Seb said to the quiet room.
Declan barked a laugh, then shot his hand over his mouth when Seb startled and turned.
“Fuck,” he grumbled. “Sorry, Seb. Didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
“It’s okay,” he answered with a sigh. “It’s not like you haven’t seen his performances before.”
“The man’s a steamroller.”
Seb laughed. “Yeah. I guess I’ve been flattened by him enough it just seems routine now.”
Declan drank Seb in, appreciating the way the collar of his shirt touched the soft skin of his neck and how his eyes shone even when he was down. He wished he could protect the guy from his own father as well as he could protect him from intruders. “He’s dragging you to some family event, huh?”
“A corporate event in a few months, the only kind he actually cares about. He’s winning an award from Horizon Zed. At least the part is easy to play. I sit there politely and act like I’m not going to take the whole company down one day.”
Declan crossed his arms over his chest. “Excuse me?”
Seb’s eyes got wider. “I just mean—the company will have to change, eventually.”
Declan didn’t have to be a genius like Seb to catch the signs he was lying, from the way his voice sped up to the panic dancing in his eyes. A couple of weeks ago, he would have let it drop, but after all that had happened, he was hardly about to let this revelation slide by. “Tell me what’s really going on,” Declan said, leaning a little closer. “Impress me, Seb.”
Seb’s pink cheeks always made Declan think of ripe fruit, which always got him to thinking about biting down on Seb’s lip and how sweet his moans had tasted. But when Declan leaned in at that moment and saw the fucking blush that Seb gave him, it was like a motorcycle revved between his legs.
“It’s nothing,” Seb said, scratching the back of his head and turning his eyes away. “Just one of my silly experiments.”
Declan didn’t believe that for a fucking minute. “One of your silly experiments that might take down a giant corporation?”
Seb turned back, and when their eyes met, his whole body softened and his shoulders relaxed again. “Kind of,” he said with a half-smile.
Declan pulled out the stool to take a seat. “Hit me.”
“It’s just that my father’s business model and the way Horizon runs their corporation—it can’t last for much longer. Sustainable business practices and technologies are clearly going to be the wave of the future. Industries with unsustainable resource extraction, large carbon footprints, extreme waste levels… They need to change, but people like my father are holding on at the top, using all their power and money to stay exactly the same. It’s ridiculous, and they’re too powerful and too established for anyone to take them down.”
Seb took in a deep breath. Declan had no doubt he believed with his whole damn heart what he was saying. He wasn’t just mad at the man for being a horrible father. Seb had his own passions, his own beliefs, and Declan could see, plain as day, that they went against everything his father stood for.
“And you’ve got a plan to change things,” Declan said, a satisfied growl in his voice.
“I’m not going to waste my time trying to disassemble my father’s company,” Seb said, “or trying to force them to stop what they’re doing. They’re going to go on building weapons and polluting the environment no matter what. But what I can do is build the thing that will make him irrelevant. I can develop the technology before he gets a chance to and make it available to anyone who wants it for free. If I help build the thing that replaces him, then I won’t have to take Horizon Zed down. They’ll crumble on top of themselves.”
“All by yourself? That seems like a big fucking job, Seb.”
“It is. But no, I can’t do it alone. I can, however, use my position to access Horizon research and stay a step ahead of them with my own developments.” He bit down on his lip, looking almost guilty for a moment. “And maybe, a few times, I’ve sent some helpful information on to friends who are working in green technologies.”
Declan loved the way that talking about this lit Seb up. “That all?” he asked.
“Another time I sent along some false research to junk up their progress and slow them down for a month. But the research was pointing toward nuclear weapons development! My father was breaking the rules of our contract, anyway.”
Declan stared at Seb, heat swelling his chest. When Seb blinked, Declan finally cracked and roared out a laugh. “Fuck, Seb,” he said, grabbing his side. “You’re really something, aren’t you?”
Seb waved his hand in the air, embarrassed by the compliment. “Like I said, it hasn’t really gotten anywhere big yet. But I’m making progress slowly.”
“I knew you were a genius,” Declan said with a nod.
Seb put his hand over his eyes, then laughed. “There’s really no such thing,” he protested again, then slid his hand down, letting it drop off his face. “But you’re right that I’m uniquely talented at what I do. It’s a blessing and a curse.”
The wind whipped through the air outside, pulling their attention to the yard. A light sprinkling of fresh snow had fallen, and the sun was coming back out from behind the clouds. Declan thought about how much Seb had committed himself to his dream.
He’d been alone for years. Alone with his work, sure, but that was still alone.
